Monday, December 15, 2014

Excuses, and the Dolores report

Yup. Me again. It's been a while. I do have a problem with blogs -- eventually I just get tired of talking to myself. Some new directions here, maybe, so I'll try again to stay with a program.

Last post I was on my way to a group camp-out in the Four Corners area, near Dolores CO. Two days' travel from Boulder. Lotta up and down over the Rockies. Funny how I never really notice that in the little car! The truck makes such heavy weather of climbing hills; it gets very very loud, and if I don't stay right on top of it, and let my speed get too low, it just won't accelerate until I get on the flat again. I guess I'll get used to it. And regardless of all the ups and downs, the think gets a pretty constant 10 mpg, which all things considered isn't that bad. Particularly now that gas prices have nose-dived... last summer it cost me about $0.35 per mile for gas, right now it looks more like $0.25.

My idea with the blog was that as I travelled, I'd sit down and write about the day's adventures and upload pictures. What happened was that internet access was pretty spotty. The hot spot works like a champ, but T-Mobile has a long ways to go to catch up with, say, Verizon, in coverage. Plus, I'm drawn to more out-of-the-way places to stay. The dedicated RV bloggers and vloggers park outside a MacDonald's or a Starbucks are use the free wi-fi to upload. If I'm staying a few days off the grid, I'm, well, off the grid. The solution is to write daily and upload when possible. Obviously.

The event at Dolores was interesting, but I'm not sure I'll go again. I have a few pictures which will give an impression of the place --

Emma loved it. It was the first time that I could just let her wander around off-leash; there were lots of other dogs, and her social skills from Doggy Day Care came to the fore.

I was less enthralled. My appetite for the human equivalent of sniffing butt is pretty limited, and sitting around in a circle exchanging small talk isn't my idea of a good time for long. This group was largely composed of people who know each other, and I felt very much the outsider. Not because they were unfriendly, I hasten to add. If I were a more aggressively gregarious person it might have been very different.

At any rate -- from Dolores I pretty much hightailed it home. Took a couple of days. And that was the last Summer trip in the Beast. I'll ruminate on why, and what I might do next, in my next post.

Here we go ...

This is about my travels in a 1999 24-foot class C motorhome, which I sometimes call "the Beast." It's also about projects, renovations, repairs, and plans which occur to me when I'm on the road.

There's a lot of these RV travel blogs out there. I've listed below some of the ones I read regularly. My intention is not so much to publish a travel magazine, but to record where I went and what I did and what I did to the rig and what I'd like to do. Something close to the original meaning of "log." Random thoughts on the general enterprise of RV travel will creep in.